First Drawn and Cut Beads
From Furnace to Flame: A Journey In Glass
On our last Hot Shop day of 2022, we attempted to pull a hollow cane. It did not go as well as we would have liked. It turned out the blow pipe was occluded and in the end, I only got a small segment that was hollow.
Then, the blown rod sat around until I had the means to cut and polish the glass for bead production. I finally got part of a wet work area put together with a grinder and flat lap. The wet station also has some new bead reaming, glass cutting, and grinding bits for the rotary tools. First thing up was to try and cut and polish a bead or two. I started with the polygon/cubic beads and the 5 to 6 sided cut beads from the Ribe Post Office Dig. At this point, I still had not figured out how to get the polish done and the beads ended up with a matte finish.
I did feel ready to cut the hollow cane, though. I started with just four beads because that was all I could get out of the hollow cane. I used a diamond cutting wheel to score the glass, then the beads just fractured off. The ends were ground up to 3000 grit.
I then set out to make some finer polished beads. I decided to make the purple bead from this Birka inspired set. The original looks like it might have been faceted so I had a go at it.
I ended up with two good beads. I was able to get them up to 14000 grit polish using the Tech 11 disc.
The process involves lapping on a spinning disc. These are diamond discs specifically for glass work. I started with 360 and worked up to 3000 grit, trying to spend longer on each consecutive disk. I have also been using the lap to cut down beads with bad perforations. This makes them look like drawn and cut beads and allows me to divert them from the flop bead pile. Once I got to the 3000 grit, I pulled these to the side and only continued on with the faceted beads.
I have also used the lap to clean up the bottom of the game pieces bringing them up to a 3000 grit finish as well.
The Tech 11 is a felt-like pad that can be infused with a paste. The yellow is 8000 git and the pink is 14000 grit. I used the yellow for the ends, and the pink for the face. After finishing with the beads, I rinse them and let them dry. Then, I view them under 3x magnification and any that are not meeting my expectations go on the Tech 11 again.
The clear is from the Silk Road bead project. I am finally happy with this bead. The green and blues are from Ribe.
I am very pleased with these beads that represent my 3rd go at lap working and it took about 4 hours to finish the batch.
